The year 2020 has asked for tremendous growth in the demands for cold storage venues due to increase seen in the volumes of online shopping and as of most recently, also to enable the storage of the much-awaited Covid19 vaccine. Due to this very fact, the year 2021 is expected to bring 17% growth in the cold chain firms profits and raise the business to Rs 1.7 trillion in India alone. This just goes to show that the
cold chain firms are witnessing this surge from pharma and other allied businesses.
With India commencing the second-largest vaccination drive from the 16th of January, cold storage owners all across the country have looked to increase their storage capacity. Hence by the end of the year 2020 itself, the volume capacity of cold chain firms have crossed almost 41 million tonnes. As predicted most of this growth will be witnessed due to the rolling out of the Covid19 vaccine, however, it will be further enhanced as the government will start various immunisation programs, along with the increasing requirements seen in the online retail industry for the supply of groceries and other essentials.
The current stakes are such that the various pharma companies account for about 3.6% utilization of the cold chain firms, and the same is expected to increase threefold by the end of the year 2021. Major logistic companies have acquired large volumes of cold storage so as to aid the government in the race to vaccinating India against Covid19. If studies are to be believed, India will require approximately two billion doses to vaccinate a billion people going by the requirements of the two-dose regime. This means large volumes of cold chain firms need to establish as per the requirements to enable storing and carrying the life-saving Covid19 vaccines.
According to the leading cold chain firms players, India has 225 walk-in coolers, 57 walk-in freezers, 44,000 ice-lined refrigerators, 38,000 deep freezers, 79,000 cold boxes, 1.4 million vaccine carriers and 700 vans and other trucks that are GPS enabled and have temperature trackers fit onto them to ensure that the vaccines are transported without any errors. The entire world is witnessing what is being called the largest distribution puzzle which global logistics and cold chain firms will be experiencing together.
It is a given that one of the most crucial factors to be maintained for the Covid19 vaccine is the temperature quotient, because of which the last few months have seen people rushing to acquire walk-in freezers and chillers the fastest moving products. In the quite literal sense, there has been a global freezing frenzy that has occurred. Cold chain firms play the humongous role of not only keeping the vaccine cold but also ensuring that the same temperatures and safety is maintained while they are being moved to all those places that require the vaccine shots.
Indeed, based on all these factors it is clear to see that the role played by the cold chain firms is very critical in the storage and movement of the Covid vaccine.
